Why use SongWriter music notation software?

If you’re still using a pencil…You know that changing the key or adding an intro means starting over. When your music is in SongWriter it’s easy to change keys, add measures, and move things around any way your creative impulses move you.

Sheet music that plays back

With SongWriter music notation software, you can listen to the results before the rehearsal. When you can hear what you’ve written you can quickly refine your music to sound exactly the way you want.

SongWriter does the heavy lifting, like managing how each staff plays back and transposes, so you don’t have to. Simply select the instruments you wish to write for and get started!

Learn how to use SongWriter

Should you ever have a question, SongWriter includes QuickStart Videos and other resources, right in the Launch Window.

Don’t let great ideas get away!

When inspiration strikes, you want to notate it quickly.Simply play your MIDI keyboard and music automatically appears in SongWriter. Or if you prefer, enter notes with your computer keyboard or mouse.

Create music with others

Work with collaborators? SongWriter can help here too, even if your band mates use different software. SongWriter can open files made by the entire family of Finale software like Finale PrintMusic and Finale Allegro, as well as import MIDI and MusicXML files created by hundreds of other products.

Take control of how your music sounds

Breathe life into sheet music

SongWriter offers professional instrument sounds, realistic playback, and creative inspiration. Hear your notes as you enter them, then press Play to hear how they interact. This instant feedback empowers you to quickly shape the music of your imagination.

But SongWriter does more than make sounds. SongWriter makes music – and even offers creative suggestions.

Human Playback® and high-quality software instrument sounds

Your music deserves to be heard with all the feeling and phrasing you imagined when you wrote it. Human Playback makes this possible by playing your music with the nuance and expression of human performers. When Human Playback is combined with the high-quality software instrument sounds built into SongWriter, the results are amazing.

Arrange your song with creative input

Need help harmonizing your melody? Not sure what the drummer should play? No problem.

SongWriter offers composers and arrangers idea-generating tools to save time and suggest creative options. Band-in-a-Box Auto-Harmonizing can automatically turn your melody into two- or three-voice harmony. Use Drum Groove to easily add custom drum parts in a variety of styles.

Mix your recording

An integrated mixer lets you further shape the sonic space where your music lives. You control reverb, panning, balance, and more.

Appearances do matter.

When music looks professional, it’s easier to read, AND instills greater confidence.
SongWriter gives you the power to make your music look professional. You can add lyrics, chord symbols, repeats, codas, and a wide variety of musical markings – and they all look stunning.

Make guitar tabs

Writing for guitar doesn’t end with chord symbols. You can also choose to display crisp fretboard diagrams. Creating tablature, for guitar or bass, is simple too.

Percussion parts

When you enter a note on a percussion staff, SongWriter provides on-screen feedback indicating whether you’re about to enter a snare, bass drum, or other percussion instrument – and displays the appropriate notehead. Of course everything plays back perfectly – your snare plays with a snare sound, and so forth – automatically.

Create your own sheet music –
your way

Not only can you put all these items on your page, you have control of your page, too. Want to move a measure from this system to the next? It’s one-button easy. You control where your music appears. And with engraver-quality music, you not only get more respect, you also get better performances.

Printing music is just
the beginning

Share audio files, sheet music, electronic files – whatever works best!
The drummer only plays by ear. The horns want printed charts. The keyboardist wants electronic files she can edit. Isn’t it fun being a band leader?

It can be – with SongWriter. Once you’ve created your music, you can share it in more ways. Send the drummer an MP3 to hear the new song. Print the horn charts. Email the song to the keyboardist so she can open, play, print, and make minor edits with the free, downloadable Finale NotePad®. This is just the beginning!

With SongWriter you can:

Print sheet music.

Create MP3, WAV, or AIFF audio files

Get free music education worksheets (included) or create music worksheets of your own.

Exchange music with users of other Finale family software, including Finale PrintMusic and the free Finale NotePad.

It may be that in the future, we’ll find an easier system for inputting music notation than a computer keyboard. For now, this is a good software for lead sheets. The online manual is always up to date. Spacing notation in measures, or staves on the page, is easier than in Sibelius G7. The free Reader is a great feature. Customer support helped me get up to speed as a new user.”